BIODEGRADATION

USING MICROBES

Dr.T.V.Poonguzhali
Department of Botany
Queen Mary’s College,Chennai-4
 INTRODUCTION

•Biodegradation is the process by which organic substances are

broken down by the enzymes produced by living organisms.
• The term is often used in relation to ecology, waste management and
environmental remediation (bioremediation).
•Organic material can be degraded aerobically, with oxygen, or
anaerobically, without oxygen.
• A term related to biodegradation is biomineralisation, in which organic
matter is converted into minerals.
•Biosurfactant, an extracellular surfactant secreted by microorganism
enhances the biodegradation process
•Biodegradable matter is generally organic material such as plant and
animal matter and other substances originating from living organisms,
or artificial materials that are similar enough to plant and animal matter
to be put to use by microorganisms.
•Some microorganisms have the astonishing, naturally occurring,
microbial catabolic diversity to degrade, transform or accumulate a
huge range of compounds including hydrocarbons (e.g. oil),
polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), polyaromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs),
pharmaceutical substances, radionuclides and metals.
•Major methodological breakthroughs in microbial biodegradation have
enabled detailed genomic,, bioinformatic and other high-throughput
analyses of environmentally relevant microorganisms providing
unprecedented insights into key biodegradative pathways and the
ability of microorganisms to adapt to changing environmental
conditions.
•Biodegradable waste in landfill degrades in the absence of
oxygen through the process of anaerobic digestion. The
byproducts of this anaerobic biodegradation are biogas and
lignin and cellulose fibres which cannot be broken down by
anaerobes (anaerobic microbes)

•Biogas contains methane which has approximately 21 times

the global warming potential of carbon dioxide. In modern
landfills this biogas can be collected and used for
power generation.
Methods of measuring biodegradation
•The activity of aerobic microbes can be measured by the
amount of oxygen they consume or the amount of carbon
dioxide they produce.
• Biodegradation can be measured by anaerobic microbes and
the amount of methane or alloy that they may be able to
produce.
Plastics
•Biodegradable plastics made with plastarch material (PSM),
and polylactide (PLA) will compost in an industrial compost
facility.
•There are other plastic materials that claim biodegradability,
but are more often (and possibly more accurately) described
as 'degradable' or oxi-degradable; It is claimed that this
process causes more rapid breakdown of the plastic materials
into CO and H O
The following table should be read with the above comments in mind, and care should be taken
before accepting claims of biodegradability in view of the (dubious) claims being made.
Banana peel, 2 – 10 days
Orange peels, 1 month
Sugarcane Pulp Products, 1 - 2 months
Cotton rags, 1 – 5 months
Paper, 2 – 5 months
Rope, 3 – 14 months
Wool socks, 1 – 5 years
Cigarette filters, 1 – 12 years
Tetrapaks (plastic composite milk cartons), 5 years
Plastic bags, 10 – 20 years
Diapers 10 – 20 years
Leather shoes, 25 – 40 years
Nylon fabric, 30 – 40 years
Tin cans 50 - 100 years
Aluminum cans 200 - 500 years
Plastic Bottles 70 - 450 years
Plastic six-pack holder rings, 450 years
Styrofoam cup, non-biodegradeable
Biodegradable Plastic Bags, 75 days
Biodegradable Paper Cups, 75 days
• Bioremediation can be defined as any
process that uses microorganisms, fungi
, green plants or their enzymes to return
the natural environment altered by
contaminants to its original condition.
Bioremediation may be employed to
attack specific soil contaminants, such
as degradation of chlorinated
hydrocarbons by bacteria. An example
of a more general approach is the
cleanup of oil spills by the addition of
nitrate and/or sulfate fertilisers to
facilitate the decomposition of crude oil
by indigenous or exogenous bacteria.
The process of bioremediation can be monitored indirectly by measuring the
Oxidation Reduction Potential or redox in soil and groundwater, together with
pH, temperature, oxygen content, electron acceptor/donor concentrations,
and concentration of breakdown products (e.g. carbon dioxide). This table
shows the (decreasing) biological breakdown rate as function of the redox
potential.
This, by itself and at a single site, gives little information about the process of
remediation.
 Redox
Process Reaction potential (Eh in
mV) 
O2 + 4e− + 4H+
aerobic: 600 ~ 400
→ 2H2O
anaerobic:   
2NO3− + 10e− +
denitrification 12H+ → N2 + 500 ~ 200
6H2O
  MnO2 + 2e− +
  manganese
4H+ → Mn2+ + 400 ~ 200
IV reduction
2H2O    
Fe(OH)3 + e− +
iron III
3H+ → Fe2+ + 300 ~ 100
reduction
 ADVANTAGES OF BIODEGRADATION
•This technology is likely to be very important in remediating the environment of toxic
substances and reducing health risks for populations that live around hazardous waste sites,"
according to NIEHS director Ken Olden

•Biodegradation is the molecular alteration of an organic compound by living organisms. The

final result of biodegradation of a hazardous substance is the reduction of toxicity and human
exposure to environmental contaminants

•One problem with biodegradation is that, in some cases, it can increase toxicity and exposure.
In addition, studies have indicated that carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic compounds
may be incidentally created that are highly detrimental to plants and other microbes
DAL LAKE
Adding oxygen to ground water contaminated by gasoline spills or leaking underground storage
tanks is a common approach for site remediation. Since the late 1980s, it has been known that
adding oxygen to contaminant plumes promotes the aerobic biodegradation of petroleum
contaminants such as gasoline. On the other hand, the addition of oxygen to anoxic ground
water does not always result in increased aerobic biodegradation.
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